


you broke me first.

by bugheadsblueandgold



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Best friends Veronica and Jughead, Cheating, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Jughead Jones-centric, Minor Character Death, Moving On, Post-Canon, Sad, The aftermath of prom, they're in college
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:40:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25096234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bugheadsblueandgold/pseuds/bugheadsblueandgold
Summary: The aftermath of Betty cheating, where Jughead moves on and goes to college in New York City with Veronica, until the death of a parent brings them all back to Riverdale.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones, Jughead Jones/Veronica Lodge friendship
Comments: 14
Kudos: 41





	you broke me first.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I'm not entirely proud of this, but I hope you all like it. I want a Jughead/Veronica best friendship SO bad, and I'm hoping we gte that in season five. Kudos and comments are appreciated!! 
> 
> Enjoy! xx

“I kissed Archie, Jughead. I’m so sorry.” 

_ I kissed Archie, Jughead (I don’t love you anymore, Jughead.)  _

_ I kissed Archie, Jughead (You weren’t enough for me, Jughead.)  _

_ I kissed Archie, Jughead (This is how it was meant to be, Jughead.)  _

_ I kissed Archie, Jughead (You really think I’d be with someone as worthless as you forever, Jughead?) _

_ I kissed Archie, Jughead (You were a fool to trust me, Jughead.) _

_ I kissed Archie, Jughead (I don’t love you anymore, Jughead.)  _

“You… you what?” 

“I’m so sorry,” Betty cries, reaching out for Jughead, who pulls away at the idea of her touch. 

“I didn’t mean to, it was a mistake, I swear it didn’t mean anything.” 

They’re in her bedroom, and they’re both still in their Prom attire: Jughead in a suit, Betty in a cerulean blue satin gown to match Jughead’s eyes. Oddly enough, they’re standing in the same place they had their first kiss, which almost makes Jughead want to laugh at the irony of it all. 

“Didn’t mean anything? You kissed my best friend. Your best friend’s boyfriend. I loved you, Betty. I gave you  _ everything _ I possibly could. When your dad was arrested, I was there. After a fight with your mom, I was there. After the Sisters of Quiet Mercy, I was the one who helped you. Every meal, every nightmare, every  _ single fucking second,  _ I was there for you. And the  _ one _ time I don’t do what you want, you go and betray me in the worst way possible. If it wasn’t clear already, I’m done.  _ We’re  _ done.” 

“Juggie, please!” Betty’s sobbing now, and despite everything, Jughead still wants to kiss away her tears; make her feel better. Betty clenches her palms, and something in the boy snaps. 

“ _ No!  _ No, Betty! You don’t get to call me that, and you sure as hell don’t get to act like the victim here! You don’t get to make me feel bad for you! I’ve been homeless, abused, neglected, half beaten to death, whatever. But this… somehow, this hurt the most.” He takes a deep breath, and it comes out choked. Jughead realizes there are tears going down his own face, but he’s determined not to break down until he’s out of her sight. He’s not sure what he’ll do if she comforts him one last time. “I  _ hate _ that you’re doing this,” he gestures to her palms, uncurling her fingers. “For me, you’re going to try and stop. You were doing so well. Don’t let that stop because of this. If you’re going to give me one last thing, give me this.” The feeling of defeat is heavy in the room as Betty nods, eyes on the floor. He begins to leave as she stands there, tears going down her face, albeit still beautiful in the gown that she bought for their last school dance together. Well, now that Jughead thinks of it, their last dance together. He thinks of the times his head would hit the pillow, Betty sleeping peacefully beside him, and wonder what the song their first dance would be to.  _ It’s crazy _ , he supposes,  _ how quickly even the biggest of dreams can shatter.  _

“Was it only once? Did you pull away, as soon as it had happened?” 

She’s silent as she cries a little more, and Jughead takes that as his answer before shutting the door. 

  
  


Jughead leaves for New York City with Veronica on August 12th, and they both decide to share a crappy apartment (to Veronica Lodge’s standards, at least) near campus. His credits from his classes at Stonewall had ended up transferring over to Riverdale High, and to his luck, Jughead finds himself attending an ivy league school, making his dad beyond proud. The raven haired girl attends Barnard, he attends Columbia, and he thinks that this just might be the fresh start he so badly needed. 

The first night he hears Veronica trying to muffle the sounds of her crying, Jughead, selfishly, feels a little better (not because he likes the idea of Veronica being sad, but rather, there’s some comfort in knowing that he’s not the only one). One night, she comes into his room wearing an oversized t-shirt and sweatpants, and climbs right into bed with him so she doesn’t have to be alone. It’s weird to see her like this: not put together, without makeup or her pearls on, but it makes him remember that they aren’t so different after all. Eventually, it becomes routine whenever she’s sad, and each time, he’ll hold her until she falls asleep, or until she’s no longer crying, telling her that  _ this pain is only temporary,  _ and  _ you’re gonna get through this,  _ and,  _ god, I can’t believe we ended up here,  _ which makes her laugh, because who would’ve thought that the two of them would be crying in each other’s arms, sad because the people who were supposed to be their soulmates betrayed them. When Jughead wakes up in the morning, Veronica will already be in the kitchen, dressed for the day and making coffee, and they won’t talk about the night before unless someone brings it up over a movie they’re watching that night. There’s nothing romantic about it, and it’s nice to have someone there for him in return. The only time things get a little more than platonic is when they kiss after crying over a rom-com, half drunk. It’s weird and they decide never to do it again, and things go back to normal. 

Veronica and Betty make up during their sophomore year, and the first day he hears them talking on the phone is the same night he goes to a bar, gets drunk, and has his first ever one night stand. Veronica’s there when he comes home, a cup of coffee for his hangover in hand and an apologetic look on her face. 

“Do you think it’s ever gonna get easier?” He asks her that night after dinner on the couch, eyes glued to the wall. 

“I don’t know. I hope so.” 

“I just thought I was more to her.” 

“I know.”

He ends up falling asleep on her lap, tears slowly pouring out of his eyes. 

  
  


Junior year is better than the past two. They make more friends, Veronica throws parties, gets an internship as a fashion consultant at W Magazine, and Jughead gets a call from a publishing company letting him know they’re interested in his work. By that March, he finds himself with a book deal. Toni and Cheryl visit that summer, and Jughead is surrounded by a bunch of powerful women who convince him to get off his ass and go on a date with Sydney from his English Literature class, who had been flirting with Jughead for weeks now. 

(He says he’ll think about it, but they all know he’s scared to say no to them, and will be going whether he likes it or not.)

Him and Sydney date for seven months, and he has a good time with her. She’s there when his book gets published, jumping into his arms and kissing him when he gets his first copy of the novel. She’s headstrong and can joke around with him, and she makes him happier than he’s felt in awhile. They breakup when she spends the remainder of her senior year doing an exchange program in Barcelona, but they remain friends and Jughead feels a bit lighter when he realizes he hasn’t thought about Betty in a long time. 

Hiram Lodge loses his fight with cancer in November of their senior year, and Jughead accompanies Veronica to Riverdale for the funeral. It’s a beautiful service, he even sees Alice Cooper shed a tear. Betty is standing beside her, and he’s felt her eyes on him since he arrived. There’s a man next to her, rubbing her back and it takes Jughead more than he’d like to admit to realize that it’s her boyfriend. Somewhere in the back, he sees red hair and realizes Archie has also come to pay his respects. Veronica seems to notice too, and after the funeral, he sees her go talk to him - chin up and confident. The way she looks at Archie isn’t the same as it used to be, and this is when Jughead truly understands that she’s moved on. 

He visits his dad and JB at the Cooper-Jones house and a wave of sadness rushes through him, thinking about the last time he was here. JB tells him about her junior year, even though they call each other every week, and introduces him to her girlfriend Sadie, Reggie Mantle’s little sister, and he laughs at how different the two siblings are. 

“Alice is actually kinda nice. She’s not as uptight anymore,” JB explains, telling him about how they go to the arcade together sometimes, and that Alice is surprisingly good at air hockey. 

Betty and her boyfriend, Adam, come over for dinner and he sits at the opposite end of the table by Alice and JB so he doesn’t have to talk to her. Adam’s studying to be a lawyer, and he’s kind of a narcissistic jerk, but Betty looks happy, so he figures it doesn’t matter. Alice is shooting death glares at him, even worse than the ones he used to get, so he figures she isn’t all that happy with Betty’s new relationship. When Adam starts talking about how he’s planning on becoming a partner of his law firm by the time he’s 27, Jughead excuses himself from the table. 

He’s sitting on the front stoop when he hears the door open, and Betty steps out behind him, sitting beside him as he twiddles with some grass. 

“Hey.” 

“Uh, hi.” 

“How’ve you been?” 

“Good.” 

There’s awkward silence, and Jughead thinks about what she would do if he just made a run for it. 

“Your book was really great, Jug. It’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever written.” 

“You read it?” 

“Four times,” she laughs quietly, looking down. “No wonder it’s a New York Times Bestseller.” She pauses, before whispering so quietly that Jughead barely hears it, “I came by your book launch.” 

His head snaps up, looking at her doe eyes and trying to find something in there; trying to read her like he used to be able to. “You came to New York?” 

“Yeah. I was gonna make this whole speech about how sorry I was and how much I missed you, but you were hugging this other girl. It was stupid, It didn’t even occur to me that you’d moved on. I’m glad you did, though. You deserve to be happy, Jug.” He doesn’t say anything, just stares at her for a moment. She looks so different than she did in high school: her hair is down, and she’s wearing clothes that seem more her style. She’s filled into her body nicely, and Jughead tries to get the memory of his fingertips against her skin out of his head. 

“How’d you meet Adam?” He asks, desperate to change the subject. 

“At a party. He spilled his beer on me.” 

“How romantic,” he deadpans. She laughs, making him smile a bit. “Does he make you happy?” 

“I guess. But some nights, I think about how you treated me, how you made me feel worthy of something, and I wonder if it was all a mistake.” Before he can think about it further, he wraps an arm around her frame, and she rests her head on his shoulder. They stay there for a bit, the only light on them from the moon, and Jughead thinks of what their lives would be like if the whole mess of Prom night never happened. 

He tells Veronica, Toni, and Cheryl about it the next morning at Pop’s, but half of his attention is on the burger that feels like magic in his mouth. They’re all talking at him and freaking out, but god, he thinks he might’ve missed this diner more than he missed Betty. The thing he does pay attention to, however, is Veronica’s words, when she says, “If you want her, you have to go tell her. But if you’ve moved on, you have to let her go. You can’t have moments like that on your front step when you see each other again, and you can’t stay in the past. It’ll eat you up inside.”

That night after dinner, he pulls Adam aside in the backyard. “Her favorite flowers are daisies, and she hates seafood. She takes her coffee with a little bit of cream and three packets of sugar, but she likes tea more. It calms her down. She’s really grumpy in the morning, but if you make her pancakes she’ll get up as soon as she smells them, as long as they don’t have chocolate chips. Her favorite book is Beloved, and she loves picnics, but in the summer, she gets a lot of mosquito bites and they drive her crazy, so you have to distract her or else she’ll pick at them. She’s terrible at baking, but she’s a pretty good cook, so when she can’t sleep and decides to bake cupcakes, make sure she has instructions, otherwise she’ll just eyeball it. She always falls asleep during action movies, so if you’re planning on watching one, don’t expect her to make through half of it. Baths calm her down when she has anxiety, and she forgets to eat when she’s stressed, so you have to give it to her and make her take breaks. She’s always wanted to go to Greece, and she’s more about experiences, rather than materialistic gifts. She hates pickles, and she’ll order a salad as her side when you go out to eat, but you should give her some of your fries anyway, because that’s what she actually wants. And don’t forget, even when you want to help, she’s not a damsel in distress. She can handle herself, and she doesn’t need protecting. Still, just… take care of her, man.” He pats Adam on the shoulder, leaving him stunned, and walks out to the sidewalk, unaware of the blonde that had been sitting on the patio swing the whole time. 


End file.
